 In this episode we'll talk about the difficult relationship designers have with money, why and when it matters how you label yourself and finally we'll answer the question are you just a sum of what you make? And here's the guest for this episode. Hi, my name is Christo and this is the Service Design Show. If you want to create more impact and change the world for the better as a service designer then you've come to the right place. Hi, my name is Marc Fontaine and this is the Service Design Show. On this show you get the chance to learn from some of the world's best service designers. We talk about topics ranging from design thinking, creative leadership, organizational change and customer experience. If these are the topics you're interested in be sure to note that we bring a brand new video every week so if you don't want to miss anything click that subscribe button. My guest in this episode is Christo. Christ is the CEO of Blind which is a brand strategy design consultancy in Santa Monica, California, USA. But Christ also heads The Future which I consider to be one of the most inspiring and influential YouTube channels on the crossover between business and design. For the next 30 minutes Christ and I will be talking about the difficult relationship designers have with money. Why and when it matters how you label yourself and find you will explore the question are you just a sum of what you make? So that was it for the introduction and now let's jump straight into the interview with Christ. Welcome to the show Christ. Thanks for having me Marc. Awesome to have you. Like I said I don't think a lot of service designers will know you but you have an awesome YouTube channel or it's bigger than the YouTube channel. I mentioned it as one of the most inspiring and influential channels on the crossover between business and design right? Would you say the same? Is that the domain you're in? Yes, that is the domain that we're in. We're in that intersection between business needs and design needs and somewhere in the middle is this happy place that we live in. A happy place. Exactly. The reason why I invited you is I think every part of the design community needs to have more business so also the service design community. So let's see how we can bring it in. Chris as new as maybe you are to the design service design community have you actually been in touch with service design? Is that a term that's been alive in your scene? I would not necessarily refer to what we do as service design but that's a very appropriate description and we've been servicing clients with design for the last 22 years. That's how long we've been in business. You know there are so many people following your work and what you do. Do you see the term service design popping up or are people really still focused in related to the future on graphic design, motion design, that kind of stuff or do you see that evolving? I've not seen that term pop up except for on this show so I don't know how it's going to evolve but it seems like most people describe themselves as graphic designer, motion designer, animator, visual effects artist, something like that. You know for me that's so brilliant. There are so many design communities living like in their own bubbles. We should create more cross-section bridges. Let's move on because you got yourself into the service design show and part of that is co-creation and I explained to you how this format works. You gave me three really cool topics and let's just start off right. Are you ready? Let's do it. Okay. So ready. Let's do it. So the first one and it's already a big one. It's called the relationship with money. Do you have a question starter that goes along with this one? Okay. All right. So I'm going to hold this up there. So can you see this? I can read. How can we? But what's the question that you'll make out of this? The question is how can we change our relationship with money? People in the creative service space in the design or service design space have an uncomfortable relationship with money. We're afraid to talk about it. We're afraid to charge what we're worth and when we don't get paid we wonder like what happened. So if we can learn how to couple business with the creative service side of what we do, I think we're going to be a lot more successful. We're going to be happier, healthier and wealthier. So let's break this down into a couple of components. Let's go. Unless you want to. Okay. So let's go. Let's go. So first is the idea of we have, we hold a lot of guilt for charging money for things that we love to do. Now if you're asked most creative people, what do you do in your spare time? Where I draw, I design, I sketch, I make logos. So it feels really wrong internally for us to charge something that we derive so much pleasure from. What we don't realize is the other person that is talking to us sees this as all magical. This is something that they cannot do obviously. And so they're willing to part with their money to have you solve a creative problem using all the skills and experiences that you have. And so we need to put this aside. I've spoken to a well-known author, his name is Blair Ends, and he talks about this and he says that, do you want to have a hobby or do you want to have a business? Yeah. And a business is one where you can grow with it. It's sustainable. It pays you a fair amount of money. You can put money away for savings in case there's a rainy day where the work dries up and then you can provide for you and your loved ones. So we have to get out of this hobbyist mentality, this artist mentality and just look at it like every other business in the world. We provide a service that's desirable and valuable for other people or two other people. Next up is the idea about talking about money. It is very uncomfortable talking about money with clients. And we will often, and I say this, designers are the best negotiators against themselves. So you think of a budget because your clients will say, how much is the cost to fill in the blank? Yeah. How much is the cost to produce a 30 second video? Right? So you go away and you go back to your room and you start thinking about numbers and you're like, oh, I want to charge $30,000. And then you think, wow, that's enough to buy a car. That's enough to buy lots of things. And is what I'm doing worth that much? So you start negotiating yourself down. You start saying, well, 30 is too much. I mean, they'll never approve that. So then we get into, maybe we can ask for $1850, like $18,500. So you go back to the client and you're like, okay, I worked on an estimate. It's going to cost $18,500. And then your client is automatically going to do this because they're trained to do this. They're going to grimace and say, hmm, that's a lot more than I wanted to pay. Could you do it for $9,000? Now you're thinking, if I say no to this project, when's the next one going to come in? And all the self-doubt, imposter syndrome starts kicking in. You start thinking about, I'm not worth it. Do you even have skills? Is what I do warrant this kind of price point? This happens all the time, right? So we have to change this relationship. Go ahead. Well, referring back to your first point, and that is, we're not used, we feel uncomfortable charging for the things we love to do. Are we considering the things that we do charge for, that they should hurt in the day? It doesn't seem to be work when it's not hurting you. What do you mean? Well, we often say in the studio, it's really hard for our clients to see the value because the work we do looks so much fun. And work shouldn't be fun. So how can they charge us this when they're having so much fun? Oh, that's very interesting. Well, I look at a movie that's released, say, by Pixar. Beautiful 90 minutes worth of animation. And you realize how expensive and how long it takes to make that. It does look very fun. So it's my job to make it look good, to make it look effortless. When a company like Apple releases a new product, we don't think about the two and a half years of R&D that went into it, the manufacturing issues that have overcome. We just want to see something that's elegant. It's beautiful and that works well. So this is where you get into the, you don't need to know how the sausage is made. You just want to enjoy a good sausage and that's it. That's interesting because maybe there's an interesting difference between the graphic design world and the service design world. For instance, a lot of our work happens in co-creationship with clients, a lot of workshops, a lot of research studies, while maybe the graphic design world is still sort of an isolated studio practice. And would there be a difference? I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of really great designers that are really experienced, masters of design. And you can come in and talk to them. And they can sketch out something that's amazing on a napkin, the infamous napkin sketch. And then the client would be prone to react and say, well, that only took you five minutes to do. And then the response would, it took me a lifetime to get to this point. Pick out some right. Yes. And I would challenge you to go and talk to somebody else and have them work on something and have them come up with a thoughtful solution as the one I came up with. And call me in a couple of weeks when they come back. It's a solution. So there's this equation in that time equals value. And I think it's the inverse of that. So somebody, a client generally thinks that the longer something takes to produce, the more valuable it is. My counter to that is, well, do you have a lot of time to waste? Do you have a lot of time to spare? Wouldn't you rather get the solution that you want now versus later? And in fact, in many industries, if you want to have a product done quicker, they charge you a rush fee of 2x or 4x. So my ability to make something quicker is actually more valuable to you because now you can focus on your business. You can launch your product. You can release the new marketing materials. Or you can do whatever you need to do so you're not focused on this thing. Let's get back to, I'm really curious. Have you found out at which point in our lives are we sort of indoctrinated that it's wrong to charge money for the things we love to do? At which point does it go straight? That's a really good question. I have never been asked that question before, so I have to think about that. Oh, OK. And let me just, while I buy myself some time, let me just turn the question back on you for a second and ask you, because we're from different cultures. Where do you think it is in your culture and the way that you grew up that it was indoctrinated in you that you shouldn't charge money for things that you take pleasure in doing? I sort of think that it's a derivative from the other things that people are used to charging money for. And that's basically the business schools, the traditional business schools. Those are the things that people are used to charge money for. And you sort of, at that moment, don't put yourself into the same bucket. And then it automatically becomes harder to see the value of your work and charge for that. OK. OK, I've had enough time to think. Does it make sense? Yeah, yeah, sort of. It makes sense to me. It seems very logical. But I also paid to get my design education actually paid at that time the same tuition that somebody that goes to Stanford pays. Yeah. A private art school education in America is very expensive. Now, here's where I think the problem is. And I don't know where we can attach a moment in time. But I do think it's something like this. We separate our activities. We segregate our lives, right? There's a time for work and a time for play. So when you're playing video games, you don't think of that as work or contributing to your career or the advancement of your intellect. We think. So when we play, we shut off those parts and we say, well, this is some other kind of activity. But when we're studying for an exam for a test or we're doing a lot of research and writing thesis papers, we feel like that is work and that's valuable. Yeah. OK. So this is the problem. Because professional athletes play all day long. And they're some of the most highest paid people. Professional actors, singers, songwriters, people who enjoy doing this kind of thing, make a tremendous amount of money. But for some reason, and I believe this is self-imposed rules that no person in society wrote and made a decree to say, if you're in the service design space, this is considered playing. You should not charge a professional rate for it. This is a disservice to yourself, a self-imposed rule. And the good news about this is we can change that. We wrote the rules. We can rewrite them or we can undo them. These are self-imposed. And so I think of this as if I'm at the highest form of what I do. If I'm the LeBron James of identity design, I should be paid an equivalent amount of money. Before we move on to the next topic, I think you just touched upon something really important. And that is maybe role models. Having role models and seeing that there is the opportunity to charge a serious, I don't know, whatever you want to call it, money gives you the confidence to actually do so. Yeah. Yeah. Are there role models? Yes, there are. There are fewer today than there were in the 80s or the 90s. I remember stories of people like Saul Bass being flown in or Massimo Vignelli being flown in via helicopter to meet with the CEOs of large corporations and being paid six, sometimes seven figures to do an identity design. Yeah, yeah. And I think the problem is a couple of things. One is the proliferation and accessibility of graphic design as a profession to so many people. So the supply of designers, the supply of service designers in the marketplace has grown exponentially while the number of clients has remained relatively same. So the demand for this work is the same while the supply has probably grown 200,000% it, right? Because in the 80s and the 90s, there were a few notable designers. And then the desktop revolution came and now everybody has access to these design tools and the barrier has been removed. And then schools turn out the graphic designers all year long and what's happening. So the market is really big. So it's a very hungry market and very few people that want to buy the services. And what happens is if you were at the top, you're getting pressure from the bottom. They're creeping up on you. So there's individuals, small agencies, medium-sized agencies and big agencies and they're all feeling the pressure to compete in the price space. But there are a few companies out there that are able to command a price premium. Companies like Pentagram, Lander and Associates that do large identity design for seven figures. Before we do a whole episode on money, which might be a really interesting thing to do, let's move on to topic number two. Okay, what is it? Labels slash definitions. Okay. Labels and definitions are always a tricky one. Okay. So I think this is the one I'm gonna hold up. All right. What if? What if? So my question is, what if we're able to change how we define ourselves? What would happen? What if we're able to change the labels that we define ourselves with and what would happen? Now, I've been recently thinking about this. How I describe myself drastically impacts my worldview and my own self-worth. So let me just tell a short story here. So I started my company in 1995 and I've been mostly walking around with this label. I'm a graphic designer, not a service designer. I'm a graphic designer. And I was actually very happy, content and proud to call myself a graphic designer. It was a term that I could use to describe myself and what I do at parties and functions with people who know nothing about design. They're like, oh, graphic design. I kind of know what you do. Got it. And then more recently, I started to realize what problems do graphic designers solve? What problems do graphic designers solve? So if you apply the same logic, what kind of problems does an interior designer solve? Well, interior design problems. Sure. What problems does a user experience designer solve? User experience. So then does a graphic designer only solve graphic problems? And for a lot of your audience, maybe they will say yes, graphic problems, identity, quote, unquote branding, logo design, brochure, marketing materials, anything that has a graphic problem to solve. But then I realized with that label, with that label, it boxes my thinking into what else it is I can do. And as I'm growing as a person and as a business person, one who wants to be able to consult my clients at the highest level, well, what if they have a marketing problem? Sure. What if they have a web problem or a customer experience problem or a culture problem? What if they have an organizational problem or an efficiency problem? And then I'm not looking for any of those things. So if I walk into a room and say, I'm a graphic designer, I'm looking for a graphic problem. So there are a lot of problems to solve, but the only ones I tune into are graphic problems and those are small. Those are small relative to the bigger problem. And we get into very spirited debates with our community and the people that I coach sometimes where they say, well, why won't clients pay me more for the logo? Because you make the logo all important. And the logo is such a tiny little part of the entire business mechanism and designers fail to recognize that. So I think if we really want to have meaningful change, if we want to grow internally, externally, we should look for bigger problems to solve. Now, you might start with clearing out your library of design books and putting in books about mindset, about philosophy, psychology, marketing, sales, organization, those are the kinds of things that maybe you can fill your mind with. But until you change that internal filter, you're going to only be looking at cool books, design icons, more examples of things for you to borrow and be inspired by. Again, I'm so happy that you are in this episode because I find it so interesting that the graphic design world, for me, those are craftsmen. And what you are talking about are really craftsmen that have a strong passion for, let's call it the product, the end deliverable, right? And from what I've been seeing the last 10 years in the service design community, people sort of struggle to actually find their craft. There are sort of, we're designing the journey and nobody knows what that is. So we are sort of from a design perspective on the opposite sides. And also on this side where people don't actually design or produce an end deliverable, people are struggling with a label they're giving themselves. What is that the service that I'm producing? So coming back to your thing, do you think consider labels to be functional at all? They can be. The reason why we have labels to begin with is because we need to give somebody else a quick idea or concept about what we do or who we are in the world. That's why we have labels to begin with. That's a consumer electronics product. That's professional grade. It's like the mental models, right? It is a mental model. It's a shorthand so that somebody understands. So I usually will then go in and somebody's like, what do you do? And depending on who it is, I might give them different answers because I'm not trying to overwhelm them. I'm not trying to browbeat them, but if I go and I say, I'm a business design consultant, they're like, what? I never even heard of that term. What does that even mean? So do you make something or how does that work? And sometimes you're just not in the mood to sit down and go through the list of what it is that you do to explain it to people. However, I do believe there are professional organizations that are supposed to represent and be an advocate for graphic design to be an advocacy for graphic design that should be changing the dialogue around this altogether. And the dialogue to sort of not letting go of the end product but focusing on the bigger problem. Yeah. Right? That's right. That's right. And it also has to start in school. Why isn't it happening? Or why is it going so slowly? Why is it going so slowly? Okay, I have some theories on this. One, change is very difficult for people. If you think about everything that's in your life, why don't you go run a marathon today? Why don't you pick up four business books and put down one design book? Yeah. Because change, it's very uncomfortable for us. And the other thing too is that institutions move really, really slowly. It's really interesting to me. Through the power of the internet and what's happening, ideas can move much faster but I just think people aren't willing to embrace this concept. And they're still really comfortable, I think, in the position that they are. They are. Even if they're broke, they're still comfortable. It's really weird. Broke, I mean, as in, can't afford it, not like a broken human being. Broken human being, man. Where are we heading to? Right. So let's put the pieces together, literally, because this is the final topic and it's called, one plus one is three. Okay, let's see. Tension rises. Shoot. There we go. Okay. All right. All right. Tension here. Why? I was debating between when will and why, but I'm gonna start with why. Why does one plus one equals three matter to you? Now this seems like funny math to me. The logic doesn't make sense. One plus one is three. Let me explain. Okay. The thing is, I want to say this is you are more than the sum of the things that you make. You're more than the sum of the things that you make. So if you just look at yourself as a maker, you're leaving a lot off the table in terms of how you define yourself. And you've already said it, Mark, about focusing too much on the deliverables, the tangibles, and focusing too much on craftsmanship. I put out this tweet and it seemed to catch the attention of a few people, people who follow me. And the tweet was something like this. It says, you pay for the strategic thinking the design is the souvenir. Okay. Now when we understand that, then we say, well, it took me one minute to make the sketch. I gave that to you for free. I'm charging you for the thinking. And this is something that's, I think for a lot of people, a new concept. Because it's like, how do you put a price tag? How do you put value on thinking? Cause everybody's got ideas. Everybody's got an opinion. And we know that opinions are kind of worthless, right? Yeah. The lowest form of knowledge. That's right. So I am the sum of my entire life experiences and those things that I used to do in play that were misunderstood by friends and family as being worthless uses of my time turn out actually to be quite valuable. Allow me to explain. I grew up playing video games. I love skateboarding and the whole skateboarding design culture, which also tied into my love for comic books. And then I walk away and I go to school and I study design and you think, well, what do those things have to do with anything? I also love watching mixed martial arts, things like the UFC and the pride championship. I loved all these things, but I wasn't going to become a professional fighter. I was not good enough to become an illustrator and I'm not good enough to become a professional skateboarder. But what do I do with all these things? What I do is when I'm talking to a client, I'm able to tap into different subcultures and understand it from the inside out. So it's when I was speaking to some of our clients from the Spike TV network when they had the UFC all of a sudden I'm like, whoa, wait a minute here. Now I'm able to draw upon my experiences. I know the fighters, their coaches, their fight history, their fighting style, their personality. So I can speak to it in a much more informed way than my client even at that point in time, even knew. So I was able to win them over by speaking so passionately and authentically about something I cared a lot about. And is that something, I'm not sure, but is that something that you think designers sort of hide away? They see that they're the other life and they don't use it to their advantage? Possibly. But a lot of me is interested in this other concept that my definition of creativity isn't about whether you can draw or sketch or even if you have good taste. Creativity to me is your ability to connect disparate ideas. So when you can see a car, like an egg container or a rocket ship, like a pair of glasses or something, you're able to bridge two things together and find this kind of magical moment, this bridge between the two, that nobody else can see. So the problem here is we, again, we need to change the way we think about creativity and not as a thing of craftsmanship or typography or point size, but one where we're able to connect disparate ideas, things that don't necessarily belong together. So when I'm talking to somebody, if I'm talking to you or if I'm talking to a student of mine, they have a problem that they need to have solved. And I'm trying to find something that's familiar to them so that I can bridge that to something that's not familiar to them. And when I'm able to do so, then I make them, I help them see the new idea as it relates to the old idea. And there's a classic example of this, something that I saw Tony Robbins talk about in building rapport with people. He said that, and I'm not a religious person, but he's like, okay, so Jesus with his disciples or yeah, his disciples, they wanted to spread the idea of Christianity. And these were fishermen, they're craftspeople, they were leather worker, they were farmers, they herded goats, and they knew nothing about sales strategy or marketing or anything like that. You might be surprised. So of course, you might be right. So Jesus used the metaphor to connect something that they knew with something that they didn't know. He said, you must become Fisher of men. So you need to figure out a way to bring people in to the idea and spread the idea of Christianity. And you can use the strategies you've learned as a fisherman and understand how to bring people in. So that's how you're able to connect. So that's how, I mean, there's a very valuable lesson there. And that's really about empathizing with the people you're working with and working for, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and I think this has been a topic on the recent episodes of the show that we're sort of, at least in this community, we're sort of advocating empathy for the end user, for the customer, but we often forget, for instance, the clients we're working for and our co-workers, getting them along our journey and our path. Basically what you're saying is the same. Step into the shoes that you are of the person you actually want something from. Right. So if I may, I'm gonna introduce one more concept for you. Let's go. You okay? Yeah, let's do it. Is your head gonna melt or are you all right? No, no, I'm good. Okay, now most of us really lack empathy, unfortunately. We think we're the heroes. So when the client calls us and says, I need help with this thing, we're like, yes. And like we're Superman, we're gonna tear off my shirt, I'm gonna fly in, I'm gonna swoop in, I'm gonna help you. I'm the hero. And first of all, and I'm guilty of this thinking myself, so you're gonna come in with a certain attitude and a self-importance and really make it all about you. You're gonna talk about your taste level, your observations, your opinions on their business, without truly understanding anything about them. And for many years, I taught sequential design and I'm a student of formulas. And one of the most formulaic industries in the world is the movie business. The stories are very formulaic and I think we broke it down to that there are only seven types of stories that are in popular culture. But all stories have one thing in common and there's a story formula here. So the story formula goes something like this and this is something I've been able to teach my five-year-old kids. This is how it goes. Every story needs this, otherwise it's broken. Somebody wants something and can't get it. They go through a series of trials and tribulations instead of getting what they want, they get what they need. And what they need is to learn a lesson. What they want is an external need or an external desire. So they want a new girlfriend, more money, more power, more wealth. What they need to learn to do is to be kinder or to recognize the efforts of others or whatever it is. They need to overcome something. Now that's a lot for somebody to remember. So it can be boiled down into three words actually. Character, want and obstacle. Every story needs an interesting character. They need to want to have something. That's what propels the story forward and they can't get that thing because if they get it there's no story, there's no conflict. So then they're gonna have an obstacle. So what you realize is when you enter a conversation with your client, you are not the character. It's not about what you want and the obstacle that's getting in your way. It's what your clients want and what's the obstacle getting in their way. So when you understand this, so now we have to have an interesting character. Characters that are generic aren't interesting in the story. So I want to learn more about you, your business, Mr. and Mrs. Client. I want to understand how you operate. Why do you start this company? What are your challenges? What is your story? What is your story? What is motivating you? All these kinds of things. And now you want something. You want to grow your business. You want to increase market share. Maybe you feel like your external identity doesn't match the value in your beliefs anymore. You've outgrown that definition. And now something's getting in your way. You don't have the skills to do it. You don't know the people to do this or there's technological concerns that you don't. You don't know how to figure out. So I'm going to help you. So in this story, I'm just the guide. Exactly, yeah. You are the hero. And so you teach this to your client and then what you ultimately teach them is the story structure that they're actually not the hero either. They're clients. They're customers or the heroes. And we need to understand that. If we want to service our customers better, we need to understand what their story is and what their wants are. And so it's like a transfer of service. Man, this happens all the time turning into inception. This is going inception all over me, man. Well, you have your totem, right? All right. You guys get your totem. Let's recap this final third point. And this was like change your mindset related to who you are by extracting that from the things you do, you make. Yes. Something like that, right? Yes. All right. You have to realize the expression of your thinking is not what you're selling, not the expression. That's the tangible thing that everybody can put their hands on. It's easy to talk about. What you're selling is your creative process and your thinking. So many questions in my head, but we're going to move on. Because, Chris, now it's your time to actually ask the people who are watching or viewing or listening, I wanted to say. Not as many as on your channel, but there are some who are listening and viewing this episode. It's our question you have for them. I know you didn't prepare this one, so. Yeah, I have several questions for them, actually. And we're going to keep it kind of thematically linked to some of the things we talked about. I want to ask you guys, what do you want? And to spend some time thinking about your own goals. So an exercise that I use to help the people I coach is something like this. Spend 10 to 15 minutes, wall yourself off from distractions. If you listen to music and you like music, turn that on if you need a glass of wine, do that. But just to separate yourself from all the stress and the normal day-to-day grind that you're in. And ask yourself, what do I want in the next one to 10 years? And spend 10 to 15 minutes and write down as many things as possible. Try to get that list to be as big as possible. So maybe 40 or 50 items. Why is it 50? Because this, the first 10 are going to be the obvious things, things you already know about yourself. The next 10 are going to be somewhat challenging to you. Like now you're really stretching. The next 10, between the 30 to 50 things that you write down are really going to shake you up and make you really think about what is it that's truly driving you? The next thing you're gonna do is after you've created this really long list is to put a number next to each item. How long will it take you to achieve each of these things? So you can write down one, three, five or 10. So anything that's a one year goal are the things that you're probably concerned with the most right now. They're the easy wins. They're the confidence boosters. And then there are the three year goals, the five year goals, and then the 10 year goals. And what we need to do is to make sure there's a balance sheet, if you will, of things that are in each one of these time categories. If your list is full of one year goals, the problem is you have no long-term vision. You're doing a lot of busy work and not really thinking about where is this all going? And sadly, I think a lot of people are mostly concerned with the one year goals. And the problem is this. Now, if you think about the future, if you think about your life when you're 40, 50, 60 years old and that idea scares you, if you become anxious thinking about the future, it's because you don't have clear goals. If you have really clear goals, you look towards the future with anticipation. And that's why I wake up every single day, every single week, every single month, super charged to do what it is I need to get done because it's very clear in my mind what the future looks like for me and the people that work for me. So that's an exercise that you guys can do. I'll be super, super interested about the comments on this episode. So I encourage everyone, I'm going to do this exercise. I'm going to do this exercise promise and I'll see what happens. I'm quite scared to actually do this, but we'll see. There's great. There's one more component to this. There's one more component to it. Oh, shit, let's go. So what you want to do is to select four goals from each one of the time categories. Four goals. And that's what you should share. So you take four from the one year goal, four from the three year goal, four from the five and four from the 10 year goal. And then what you need to do is write a detailed. How do we pick? You'll know. Because you'll pick the most important goals to you. All right. Yeah, because you might write down some frivolous things like walk my dog or whatever I don't know what you're gonna do. If you have to pick four, naturally you prioritize the highest things, right? And then you're gonna write a detailed description about each one and write, why do you want this? If you don't have a good answer, remove that and add a different item. Why do you want this? Is it for yourself? Is it to help other people? Is it because you want to win some accolades? Whatever it is. I'm not here to judge, just write it down. And if it feels like a good enough reason to motivate you to go out there and get that, then keep it. That's what you should share in the comments below. How often do you review your list? You should review them every single day. Do you? All the most successful, yes. All the most successful people have a good accounting of where they're at, where they're going because they're making adjustments all the time. And I'll give you one example. We knew we had a goal of hitting 200,000 subscribers on YouTube by the end of this year. And I did the calculation because I read the books and I go and I apply it right away. So you turn from being a student to a practitioner when you put thought into action and that's really, really important. So I went to my team because part of the book said, you must know your goals and everybody that's working with you must know your goals so they can help you achieve it. The problem with poor leaders who are managers really is they don't communicate what's up here to the team. So when the team is doing something they don't want, they get angry and they start to fire people or they get into a bad attitude. So I went to the team and said, guys, our goal is to hit 200,000 subscribers. Our current subscribers is this number. In order to get there, we need to average 350 subscribers per day and they looked at me like, oh my God, that is a lot of people to subscribe. I said, that's right. Now that's not the end of it. What do we need to do in terms of value that we can create that 350 new human beings are gonna jump on our channel and do something that most people don't do, hit the subscribe button. So then we go back and review the content and we get rid of the things that we think are frivolous and we start working on the things that matter and we watch and pay attention very carefully. So some days we only get 200 subscribers. That's when I'm like on the team like, let's turn the volume up. What do we do wrong? Why isn't this content connecting? What else do we need to do? I want ideas people. Then we get it back to 500 and then we're good again. So having very clear goals allows your entire team to focus on what's important and get rid of what is not. Well, the metrics just help you to understand if you're heading in the right direction. Right. Chris, so this was the sort of the end of the official part of the interview. This has become an extended episode. So thanks for that. Thanks for making the time. It was also having a look into the graphic design, scene, community. Thanks for being on the other side of the camera, Chris. It is my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. So what is your biggest takeaway from this episode with Chris? Share your thoughts and ideas down below in the comments. And don't forget to check out one of the most inspiring and influential business and design channels on YouTube, The Future. If you'd like to learn more, check out some of the past episodes or head over to learn.servicesignshow.com where you'll find courses by leading service design experts that dig deeper into the topics we talk about on the show. That was it for now. I'll see you in two weeks time with a brand new episode. Thanks for watching and I'll see you then.